2026年9月17日 美国东部时间12:57 / 美联社
美国亚利桑那州前共和党参议员乔恩·凯尔去世，享年84岁。这位资深立法者曾推动布雷特·卡瓦诺大法官的确认程序，并参与制定了美国西部具有里程碑意义的水资源政策。
根据其家人发布的声明，凯尔死于神经系统疾病引发的并发症。2025年12月，他宣布自己被诊断出痴呆症后便淡出了公众视野。
凯尔在国会任职近30年，其中在众议院任职8年，在参议院任职18年，还曾填补约翰·麦凯恩参议员去世留下的空缺，完成了4个月的剩余任期。他的职业生涯始于罗纳德·里根总统任期内，在唐纳德·特朗普总统第一任期内结束，见证了所在政党发生的巨大转变。
曾将凯尔视为导师的亚利桑那州前共和党州长道格·杜西在2025年2月接受美联社采访时称，这位前参议员是真正的政治家，是华盛顿“浮华政客”中的“实干家”。
“如果你在飞机上遇到他，他会坐在经济舱的过道座位上看书，”杜西说，“他看的是可能的法案或参议院事务。”
凯尔在参议院的最后一个完整任期内升至领导层职位，当时他的共和党同僚选举他为少数党党鞭。2013年退出政坛成为说客后，凯尔于2018年短暂返回国会，当时杜西任命他填补已故美国参议员约翰·麦凯恩留下的空缺。
他的任命获得了特朗普的高度赞扬，特朗普表示期待与“这位杰出的参议员”合作。凯尔在任不到四个月便重新加入了考文顿与伯林律师事务所的游说团队。
“在联邦层面，我很遗憾这么说，但可能我的多数成就都是在阻止坏事发生（而非促成好事），”凯尔在2012年与前美国最高法院大法官桑德拉·戴·奥康纳的对话中说道。
凯尔于1942年4月25日出生在内布拉斯加州奥马哈，在艾奥瓦州的一个农村农业区长大，他的父亲曾在众议院代表该地区。18岁时，他离开家乡前往亚利桑那大学就读，在那里结识了妻子卡里尔，并获得了法学学位。
1987年首次当选众议院议员（共任职四届）之前，凯尔作为一家大型水务公司的律师，参与制定了亚利桑那州1980年的地下水法规。这项开创性法规为这个干旱州建立了地下水管理监管框架，主要覆盖包括凤凰城和图森在内的该州人口中心区域。
2004年，凯尔起草了一项法案，该法案促成了美国规模最大的部落水权和解协议之一。经过数十年的博弈，该协议为希拉河印第安社区提供了足够的水资源，每年可填满近31.35万个奥林匹克标准泳池。后来担任参议院多数党领袖的肯塔基州共和党参议员米奇·麦康奈尔在2012年的议会演讲中称凯尔的工作作风“极具传奇色彩”，并表示凯尔在幕后辛勤工作了15年才推动这项和解协议落地。
“这是我做过的最艰难的事情之一，但我当时有能力成为催化剂，”凯尔在2006年接受《菲尼克斯新时报》采访时表示，“没有其他人能促成这项水权协议，而且这件事必须办成。”
亚利桑那州立大学凯尔水资源政策中心以他的名字命名。该中心主任萨拉·波特表示，凯尔乐于付出时间，是亚利桑那州国会代表团中一位高效的成员，在水资源政策方面采取务实的态度。
“他一直心系公共利益，会思考‘这对后代意味着什么？’”波特补充道，凯尔在妻子与疾病抗争的最近几年里，依然“相当精力充沛”。
杜西称凯尔是参议院中的“巨人”，形容他严肃、有感染力、直率且深思熟虑。杜西表示，凯尔最大的影响力体现在他带领共和党团一致反对《平价医疗法案》，以及他对以色列的坚定支持。
凯尔还支持立法授权在美国与墨西哥边境修建数百英里长的围栏。后来他与民主党人合作，支持一项为非法入境者提供公民身份和临时客工身份的法案，但该提案最终未能通过。
作为说客，凯尔协助推动了特朗普提名的美国最高法院大法官布雷特·卡瓦诺的确认程序。2018年凯尔重返国会时，被视为卡瓦诺的首席“向导”——这是一个非正式但广为人知的说法，指为最高法院提名人在参议院的政治征途提供指引的人。
在公布自己的痴呆症诊断结果时，凯尔引用了前总统罗纳德·里根在披露自己患有阿尔茨海默病时所说的话，称自己开启了一段将走向生命终点的旅程。
凯尔表示，他和里根一样对亚利桑那州和国家的未来充满信心，尽管被诊断出患病，他依然是“一个非常幸运的人”。
Former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona dies at 84
September 17, 2026 12:57 PM EDT / AP
Former GOP Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a longtime lawmaker who guided the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and shaped landmark water policies in the western part of the country, has died at the age of 84.
According to a statement released by his family, Kyl died due to complications stemming from a neurological disease. He had withdrawn from public life in December 2025, after announcing he had been diagnosed with dementia.
He spent nearly three decades in Congress, serving eight years in the House and 18 in the Senate, plus a four-month partial term to fill the vacancy left by the death of Sen. John McCain. He watched his party undergo a drastic transformation over the course of his career, which began during Ronald Reagan’s presidency and concluded during President Trump’s first term.
Former Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who considered Kyl a mentor, described the former senator in a February 2025 interview with The Associated Press as a true statesman and a “workhorse” among Washington, D.C.’s show horses.
“If you saw him on the plane, he was sitting in the aisle, in coach, and he was reading,” Ducey said. “And he was reading potential bills or Senate business.”
Kyl rose to a leadership position during his last full term in the Senate, when his Republican colleagues selected him as minority whip. After he retired from politics in 2013 and became a lobbyist, Kyl returned to Congress briefly in 2018, when Ducey appointed him to fill the vacancy left by the late U.S. Sen. John McCain.
His appointment drew high praise from Trump, who said he was looking forward to working with “the extraordinary senator.” Kyl stayed for less than four months before rejoining lobbying firm Covington and Burling.
“At the federal level, and I regret to say that this is the case, but probably a lot of my better achievements were in preventing bad things from happening (rather) than forcing good things to happen,” Kyl said in a 2012 conversation with former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Kyl was born in Oakland, Nebraska, on April 25, 1942, and grew up in a rural farming district in Iowa that his father represented in the U.S. House. At 18, he left the state to attend the University of Arizona, where he met his wife, Caryll, and earned a law degree.
Before he was elected in 1987 for the first of four terms in the House, Kyl was a key participant in shaping Arizona’s 1980 groundwater code as a lawyer representing a large water utility. The first-of-its-kind code created a regulatory framework for managing groundwater in the drought-stricken state, largely centering on the state’s population centers, including Phoenix and Tucson.
In 2004, Kyl authored legislation that provided one of the largest tribal water rights settlements, which, after a decades-long battle, gave the Gila River Indian Community enough water to fill nearly 313,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools annually. Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who later served as majority leader, called Kyl’s work ethic “legendary” in a 2012 floor speech and said Kyl had labored mostly behind the scenes for 15 years to advance the settlement.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I was in a position to be the catalyst,” Kyl told the Phoenix New Times in a 2006 interview. “There wasn’t anybody else who could do that water deal. And it had to be done.”
Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy is named for him. Its director, Sarah Porter, said Kyl was generous with his time and was an effective member of the state’s congressional delegation who took a practical approach to water policy.
“He’s always sort of cared about the public good and been able to think about, ‘What will this mean for the generations to come?’” Porter said, adding that Kyl remained “quite a dynamo” until recent years, as his wife battled health problems.
Ducey said Kyl was a “giant” in the Senate, describing him as serious, engaging, forthright and thoughtful. His biggest impacts, Ducey said, came from the way he kept the Republican caucus together in opposition to Obamacare and his staunch support of Israel.
Kyl also backed legislation to authorize construction of a fence stretching hundreds of miles along the U.S.-Mexico border. He later joined with Democrats to support a bill that would provide a path to citizenship and temporary guest-worker status for those in the U.S. without authorization. The proposal ultimately failed.
As a lobbyist, Kyl helped guide the confirmation of Trump-picked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. When Kyl returned to the halls of Congress in 2018, he was known as Kavanaugh’s chief Sherpa — an informal but widely known term for a nominee’s guide to the political tundra in the Senate.
In a statement disclosing his dementia diagnosis, Kyl recalled the words of Ronald Reagan when the former president revealed his own Alzheimer’s diagnosis and said he was starting a journey that would lead him to the end of his life.
Kyl said he shared Reagan’s confidence for Arizona and the nation’s future, and that despite his diagnosis, he was a “very fortunate man.”
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